First camhs appointment tomorrow, any advice?

[NoDontLickThat]

What happens in the initial meeting? I fought really hard to try and get this appointment but am now so nervous I don't want tomorrow to come, what are the chances of getting some sort of dx?

Apologies but am relatively new here so don't know if you have posted before. DD was referred for ?ADHD. From our experience we talked to a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist and specialist advisory teacher (with DD present which I found quite difficult). They basically took a full history and did some minor observations of some of the physical behaviours I described. We were then advised that the advisory teacher would go into school and observe DD and we completed a number of questionnaires. They then held a multi disciplinary team meeting and they offered us a plan of action. It actually took us 12 months to get a dx but that was because of miscommunication and an inability for the service to schedule appts in an efficient way. To speed them up I waved the NICE guidance for ADHD pathway at them and that seemed to work. One thing that I have learned is to ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to challenge what they say to you - our CAMHS is not very good at telling you what they are doing, when and why they are doing it.

Good luck for tomorrow

In the first area I lived in we had 3 CAMHS meetings with a lady who I think her title was 'social practioner' or something like that. She certainly wasn't capable of making a dx but basically used to determine if she thought you warranted being passed on to somebody useful e.g. psychologist/psychiatrist. In our case she had decided after 3 observations of DS and asking me lots of questions that he did warrant being seen, unfortunately at that point our community paed overruled her deciding it was school based anxiety and unreferred him from CAMHS.

In the next area we lived we went to see CAMHS having been referred by the GP, directly to their anxiety team. They were great, by part way through the first meeting they were sure it was actually AS and referred us straight on to the autism team. Cue dx within a couple of months.

Sorry I've recently name-changed, DS is 5 and it's thought that there is a few things going on, asd, dyspraxia, ADHD,

Nodon't hope appt went well today